In 1768, 1,200 British troops occupied Boston to quell the protests of the townspeople against arbitrary taxation – a standing army in time of peace was contrary to the accepted rights of Englishmen. The soldiers, seeking extra money to supplement their army pay by moonlighting, competed with the townsmen for jobs. (They also competed for the attention of Boston’s maidens.) Tension was in the air. Townspeople suffered abuse at the hands of the soldiery – including, it seems, the young, prominent physician Joseph Warren. One evening, while walking through the streets of Boston to attend a patient, Warren was greeted with a physical altercation by British soldiers.
Prior to this incident Warren, like many men from Europe and the colonies, had joined a local masonic lodge when he was a medical apprentice. He, together with Paul Revere, entered Freemasonry in 1761, at the ancient (Scottish) Boston lodge known as St. Andrew’s (this is probably when Warren and Revere first met and formed what would become an intimate friendship). Warren’s attendance at lodge meetings was infrequent – and within a year nonexistent.
By 1765, Warren was part of the inner circle of the Patriot cause in Boston. A protégé of Samuel Adams, his letters in the local newspapers imploring fellow citizens to oppose the tyranny of Great Britian had great influence. His name and reputation as a high Son of Liberty were well known.
In 1768, around the time of the physical encounter with British soldiers on the street – and his newspaper challenge of Massachusetts Governor Francis Bernard’s determination to reduce the power of the Massachusetts legislature – Warren was appointed Grand Master of St. Andrew’s Lodge. A year later he petitioned the Grand Lodge of Scotland to appoint him, “Grand Master of Masons in Boston and within one hundred miles of the same.” Warren’s influence widened.
St. Andrew’s Lodge owned the largest building in Boston at the time in which The Green Dragon Tavern operated. It was a favorite spot for Whigs to gather. But the tavern occupied only the first level of the building. The two upper levels were dedicated to lodge meetings and so much more. It was here that the Long Room Club met. It was here that the Sons of Liberty, the Boston Committee of Correspondence and the North End Caucus met. Royally appointed Massachusetts Governor Thomas Hutchinson (1771-1774) referred to The Green Dragon as “a nest of sedition.”
Until now, none have considered what, if any role, Warren’s masonic involvement had in the years leading to, and the first months of the American Revolution. As we continue to consider “Why Massachusetts? The Pre-Revolution,” Warren’s expanding role in Freemasonry will be further explored – and with it the opportunities available only to him.
